Fantasy Football Research Tools

An industry that has really taken off is fantasy football leagues. Not only can you play in season-long leagues but one week leagues are very hot. People are putting together teams and cashing in big on Tuesdays after the Monday night football games are done.

Can You Make it Big With One-Week Fantasy Football?

If you are just spending 15 minutes creating your team on Sunday mornings, don’t expect to win big. With about anything, you’ll only get out of it what you put into it. You’d have to be really lucky to win big by just doing a few minutes of research.

Look at it this way, there are guys spending something like 30 hours or more per week on their teams. Those are the guys winning the big prizes with one week fantasy football. So, first of all – either do as much research as they are doing or do not get into a competition with those guys. Get into leagues with newer players if you want to win some money.

You can win if you have some good research tools and we’ll provide them here along with tips and some one week fantasy football strategies and tips to help you.

One Week Fantasy Football Websites

First, here are the websites of one-week fantasy leagues you can join:

What is One-Week Fantasy Football?

Weekly fantasy football follows the same model as traditional, season-long fantasy football, but compresses the action into a single week from start-to-finish. This includes everything from research and team selection, to contest results and pay-outs.

Like season-long fantasy football, one-week fantasy players will draft a team of real-world NFL players who then score points according to set scoring rules. (These scoring rules can vary slightly between gaming sites, but we’ll talk about that in a bit.) However, instead of being stuck with the same team through an entire season, weekly fantasy football contests last just one weekend from Thursday-Monday.
What are the key differences between one-week fantasy football and season-long fantasy football?

The major differentiators between weekly and season-long fantasy football are:

Speed: Weekly fantasy sports are (obviously) quicker from start-to-finish than season-long fantasy. This means you get to start over and pick an entirely new set of players each week. It also means you’re able to enjoy your victories and get paid quicker, too.

Competition: In one-week fantasy football, you’re not competing with a small league made-up of your friends and family. Instead, you’re competing with anywhere from one player in a head-to-head contest, to hundreds or even thousands of entrants in a larger tournament.

Player selection: In season-long fantasy, only one team can own a specific player at any given time. However, in one-week fantasy football, an NFL player theoretically be owned by every team. The caveat is that players have salaries, and your team must stay under a salary cap as you construct your roster.

How to Win on FanDuel

No. 1 winner’s tip: Know the players

Over analysis can lead to fantasy paralysis. After all, during the football season there are myriad channels to consume NFL news. Shmukler’s path to riches was to ignore the noise and focus on his knowledge of players, their playing time and status.

Having a rolodex of trusted fantasy information can help you think for yourself in setting winning FanDuel lineups like the $1,000,000 fantasy football contest for Week 1. You can even enter now for just $5 —first place wins $100,000.

No. 2 winner’s tip: Cover your bases

Your first-thought lineup might not be a winner. You need to explore a variety of angles to make sure you have some variance calculated into your lineups.

You like a pair of games to be high scoring? Play some multi-entry contests, where you can stack players from both games into lineups. Give yourself the best chance to win by spreading your lineups around.
No. 3 winner’s tip: Invest in yourself

Like most football fans, you spend countless hours watching the game and formulating personal opinions. Use that time investment as your edge in fantasy.

Whether you are an avid season-long player or not, you can capitalize on your knowledge of teams, setting well-reasoned lineups based on an opponent, plan of attack or weekly circumstances (playing time or injury).

No. 4 winner’s tip: Unfortunate injuries can make for fortunes

Football is a contact sport that features injuries each week. Get in on a breakout backup early — before playing time is determined and prices rise.

A running back goes down Sunday, the next week’s contest prices are set, then the coach comes out mid-week with the bombshell “so-and-so” is out for the season.

“Next man up,” as they say in the business.

That next man is underpriced and undervalued. In season-long leagues, you are in a competitive position to try to pick the newfound starter up off waivers. On FanDuel, that new starter is there for anyone at a bargain rate.

So, in addition to knowing the players, the news, depth charts and injuries, know next week’s opportunities.

How to Make Money on FanDuel

1. Don’t Be Scared By Variety

FanDuel was one of the first daily fantasy sports sites, and it’s also got a ton of different game types. Don’t let this intimidate you. You’ll notice leagues, tournaments, 50/50s, and head-to-head contests in the lobby. Bottom line is, the game is essentially the same regardless of the phrasing. The only real difference is how many people you are playing against.

In leagues, you are typically up against a capped field of players. Typically leagues are smaller groups, similar to the size of your group of friends who play seasonal fantasy sports.

Tournaments are where the big money is. These are open to thousands of players, and you can even draft more than one team if you’d like. Buy-ins are small, but with so many people if you draft an awesome team you can potentially take down a big score.

Head-to-head and 50/50s are both pretty similar. These are contests where you either win, or you lose, but as the title of them says you’ve pretty much got a 50/50 shot. In the head-to-head version, if your team scores more points than your opponent’s team, you win! The bigger entry leagues, if there are say 100 people that enter for five bucks each, the top 50 of them will win ten bucks, and the bottom 50 will have to try drafting a new team next time. Obviously with this format it’s going to take you a lot longer to become a fantasy sports millionaire, but hey, there certainly is nothing wrong with doubling your money playing fantasy sports!

The beauty of FanDuel is that you can play in only one of these types of leagues, or you can mess around with all of them. Find the format that works best for you and start drafting for real money!

2. Practice For Free With FanDuel Freerolls

We can hear you from over here saying “nothing in life is free…” but for reals, in this case FanDuel is offering up $20,000 in free fantasy sports leagues each and every month.

Playing freerolls on FanDuel is a great way to get comfortable with how the game works, which games you like playing most, be it fantasy football, fantasy basketball among others, and what strategies help you get to the top of the leader board each week.

FanDuel offers up some freerolls for beginning players to learn the game, but they also offer freeroll tournaments for returning players as well. Typically these allow you start from zero and win your way up to bigger events. For example, players on FanDuel can enter a free football league each week where the winner would win an entry in to their $300K NFL Bomb weekly guarantee.

As you start playing for money you’ll also notice that you’ve got valuable FanDuel Points, or FDP in your account. You’ll earn these by playing more tournaments and contests. You can use these FDP points to enter special freeroll events on FanDuel.

Bottom line? You don’t need to break the bank to become a big winner on FanDuel. There have been plenty of people who’ve started their bankroll with nothing, and won big money.

Conclusion

Fantasy football is a lot of fun. It gets you involved with more games and you’ll watch the entire league instead of just your favorite team. As with anything, moderation is best. Don’t get too consumed with betting or with spending all your money (if you have a problem, go to Bets Off). Try it out and have some fun.